


ZeeiFaLea

by ParanoidAndroid (HomesickAlien)



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 17:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/ParanoidAndroid
Summary: Let me read you one of the "Stories of Coexisting with Gods,"The story of Misaki, the Goddess of Plants, and a young girl Kourin--This time, I'll sing the story of a mysterious forest filled with blooming flowers--





	ZeeiFaLea

**Author's Note:**

> Because I was listening to ar tonelico music all day the other day writing something Completely Different, I became inspired to write a short little AU for misakou based on the [Forest of Shelanoir.](https://artonelico.fandom.com/wiki/The_Forest_of_Shelanoir) You don't have to know anything about Ar Tonelico to enjoy it because that's A Lot but if you do feel welcome to spam my inbox about how amazing and awful it is because i lovehate it so much.  
> i almost wrote it with kaiai but i felt vile for never considering my favorite girlfriends all this time. although actually, a real genius would have wrote this with tokokumi given Plants and all but I already started writing it with misakou by the time I thought of that so.......... Oops. Anyway,
> 
> Please enjoy I want to write a million ar tonelico au's but i'll restrain myself to this alone.

The goddess twirls, round and round beneath the streaming light of the sun that falls beneath the treetops of the forest. Taking retreat under the shade of the tallest of all, the heart of the garden where such magnificent flowers bloom over the light green leaves. They share the magnificence of her long silver hair that dances with her movements, a light pink flower outlined in white. Like blood pooling out the heart of a man, like the eyes of a newborn child, their brilliance is beyond words. They are a treasure of her, alone.

This silent paradise where no one will ever reach her again.

She touches her hands against the tree, which she calls  _ papa. _ She lowers her body down to the base with a rare smile painted over her face. All the way down to the roots, which she calls  _ mama.  _

_ We will never be alone again. _

The tree reaches high up into the clouds, so high it’s impossible to really see the top of it at all from the ground.  _ Can you see it _ . She whispers. It’s a tree tall enough to reach the Heavens, high enough that they can see it, too. Mama and Papa, her parents which passed long ago.

_ These flowers have blossomed beautifully, for you. _

She’s been alone all these years, deep within this paradise of flowers, under the tree that represents all she has lost in the past. All that she can never forget, though she despises them deeply, she holds out hope for them. That the people beyond these lands have a light in their hearts, just as her parents would have believed in. She holds out hope for them, but…

She hears the footsteps of mortals entering her dominion, they are loud and bountiful, cruel and aggressive. With a deep-seated greed in their hearts, the humans claw mercilessly at her tree. She wants to tell them to stop, to hold out her hands and pull them away from this place, but she is so helpless. Watching them take the flowers without care, until none remain, for life eternal they wish for they take all she has.

_ Please stay away. _

She builds a wall between the humans and the tree, a large bush of thorns surrounding the forest to its entrance, yet still the humans come boldly. Fearlessly, they tear away at the thorns to reach the tree of life, and soon the heart of the goddess taints with nothing but disdain.

_ Let us live in peace, here. _

The Goddess, Misaki, raises those indiscriminate thorns from the ground. With every human that tries to pass, she takes a shot right to their chest, until not a soul would dare enter. Until nothing is left, but a Forest of Evil, tainted with blood and flesh of the once living.

Let me tell you the story, of a young girl named Kourin.

She is full of pride, like an idol under the warmth of a spotlight. She is one who can lead the way to a path of victory, an aggressive type who speaks only the honest truth. And she is one full of a gentle love like the wind that cascades buildings, someone with a rough exterior, and a soft exterior.

Once came a day where the young girl had stumbled into the forest feared by humans. Their rough thorns tore into her skin as she reached out her hand, and she pulls away with the desire to run building in her heart. But, she doesn’t turn away. Even as she scrapes her palm, her arms, her thighs, her tail, she presses onward through the thorns. Cutting into them with sword in hand, as gentle to the earth as she can, she moves forward.

The Goddess watches her with nothing but curiosity. Even as she could kill this girl with the single wish of her heart, she wonders why, she only watches. Something about her eyes, Misaki thinks, she’s never seen eyes like that before. Eyes so determined, eyes warm like a flame, eyes with such a feeling she can’t articulate, that she keeps watching without the slightest temptation to kill this existence.

Misaki presses her palm against the tree, clutching her hand into a fist against its bark,  _ we’ve been alone so long, haven’t we. _

After many days, Kourin finally falls through the briars, into a place she had never expected to see here. Raising her head up she stares in awe at the gorgeous foliage surrounding her, an honest to God paradise. With flowers blooming all around the soft greenery, and a tree that reaches the Heavens with light colored flowers outlined in pure white. She can’t believe her eyes, at something so beautiful hidden beneath such a treacherous sea of thorns.

The Goddess, Misaki, can no longer keep herself hidden.

She dances around that tree with a soft look gracing her normally dull face. Something worth celebrating has happened, today. She couldn’t be any more brilliant, radiating like the tree of life that meets the Heavens beneath her. She dances, and dances, until she meets the girl that has trespassed on her domain.

In that deep and luscious forest, the Goddess reaches out her hand to the young girl covered in cuts and bruises that speak to her determination. They hold their stare with soft gazes, eyes filled with a gentle love the Goddess had forgotten she could hold for the people beneath her. She smiles, for the first time in a long time, for the first time since that great tree she calls her family had been tainted by human hands. The thorny vines that enshroud her paradise retract, leaving a beautiful landscape of light greenery beneath their feet.

“ _ Your name? _ ”

She asks the girl, and the girl takes her hand with the most gentle kindness the Goddess has ever witnessed. 

“Kourin.”

She says, so deeply and boldly, her name leaving the legacy of her great pride to have come all this way just to meet her. She hadn’t anticipated, in this moment that she would fall in love so swiftly, with the Goddess of the forest. 

“ _ My name is Misaki. _ ”

The goddess pulls the girl up into her arms. She twirls around with her, lighting up the land beneath her in her bare feet. Her touch is cold but so truly gentle, it is inevitable after all. That the longer the Goddess stares into this girls loving eyes, she feels the burning of her chest grow brighter, and brighter, until it is entirely unbearable and she says;

“ _ I love you.” _

Without thinking, without meaning, the Goddess understands once again what has been missing in her life all these years.

The girl has come from a very far away place. She has been traveling the world wide, to find her place in the world. To find her memories. The Goddess can not forget a thing, every spiteful happenstance that has burned ash to this forest is engraved in her roots. She laments that existence that has to suffer eternally, but she learns without realizing the bridge that can be gapped, between the past and the future. As she watches this creature that has entered her paradise, watch her cook, and clean, and dig her hands into the dirt planting new life into her forest, that there are beautiful existences in this life she’s never known in her sheltered life.

The Goddess could have killed this existence at anytime, when she first stepped foot into the thorn bushes, but now she can’t imagine laying a single finger on something so precious. Even now, with such stained hands, it pains her to touch something so beautiful, but Kourin never keeps her distance, holding out her hand and pulling Misaki closer.

The Goddess can not express her happiness with words. She is cold, and distant, and always speaks painfully directly about everything, but…

“Would you like to play with me?” 

Kourin smiles, holding out cards to the Goddess.

“Vanguard,” She says in kind, “It is the one that will lead the way to our destinies.”

It’s a beautiful moment between them, just as their lives together have been. That, though they exchange few words together, the bonds between them grow deeper, and deeper, filling the love in the Goddess heart that once had been lost. She smiles, just a little bit, as they play together. Her face twitches, just a little bit, as she wins for the first time with the Goddess cards in her hands.

She feels a connection. Kourin feels it, too. And with the Goddess’ hand in her own, her face warms, stained a deep red blush.

Let me tell you the story, of a warm summer’s evening, where even the sun had been smiling, where there hadn’t been a single cloud in the sky. Where Kourin had gotten the Goddess to laugh, as she tells a soft joke while they water the flowers in the garden. Where Kourin’s face heats up, when the Goddess presses her lips to Kourin’s cheeks. Where the Goddess startles suddenly, face pale like a ghost, when she smells a scent that could only be described as  _ burning. _

The humans had grown desperate, and cruel, selfish for they could never hold the flowers that bloom life in their palms like so. They took fire to the thorn bushes shrouding that gentle paradise, until the flames could not be quenched, engulfing everything in their path. The two had tried so earnestly to stop it, raining a downpour of water over the fire but it did not stop. Taking to the greenery, and then, the flowers they had raised with such great care until finally…

“ _ No!” _ The Goddess cries out, “ _ Mama! Papa!” _

For those two who had been watching her from up in Heaven, she reaches her hand out to the tree with such an anguished look over her face. She tries so hard to reach it, if only to embrace them one last time, but…

“You can’t!”

Kourin grabs her by the waist, pulling the Goddess away. She carries her no matter how much she screams, and cries, and hits at her. For life would be worthless without her, for even this unbearable loss could not compare to that. 

Everything but the two of them has been burned to ash.

 

The Goddess lays beneath the ash at the base of where the great tree once stood tall. She wonders if her parents can see, just how pitiful she is here, unable to move. Unable to cry. Unable to feel a thing at all.

_ It’s all your fault. _

She had said such cruel words to her. And yet she stays here, laying a blanket over the Goddess when a chill blows through the wind. Combing her long, shimmering hair of knots and dirt and ash. Sitting in silence to give the Goddess peace of mind and she wallows in her agonizing sadness. Leaving food at her side. She even begins to rebuild what had once been lost, their house they shared together. Their beds.

_ It’s all your fault I couldn’t protect them! _

She had said such selfish words to her, who had saved her life that day. Many days would pass like this, an unbearable wedge being driven between them, that the young girl could no longer fill that void in the Goddess’ heart. That Kourin could no longer bloom the flowers within her paradise. 

_ There was something more important I had to protect. _

Kourin sits at her side less often. She doesn’t come to comb her hair as often, or leave her food to eat. Though the Goddess is the one being distant, she feels lonely the less Kourin stays at her side. Though she is the one who hasn’t talked, who hasn’t moved, in many months…

“I’m going away for a while.” Kourin says. The Goddess does not even twitch in response. “But I promise, I will return again soon.”

The days pass so agonizingly slowly. Even as the forest begins to bloom once more, the bright and colorful array of flowers filling the empty Earth around the Goddess, by her power, it’s not enough to bring back what is lost.  _ Kourin still isn’t here.  _ Kourin still isn’t with her. She realizes, for a moment as she sits up for the first time in a long time, that what is missing is not that tree at all.

_ I am so alone. _

The Goddess begins to cry, and as though responding to her tears the thorn bushes raise up once more to engulf this newly formed forest. A forest of tears, of an eternal sadness that can not be salvaged again. 

But though the Goddess does not notice, in no time at all and yet what feels like aeons, the girl returns once more.

Kourin reaches out her hand, tattered by the rough thorns that tear into her skin. She pulls away, with the desire to run building in her heart, but she doesn’t falter. With eyes that burn with hope, with determination, with the image of Misaki’s smile in their iris, she pushes onward. Through torn up clothes, and scrapes against her palm, her arms, her thighs, her tail, she moves forward through those briars. She doesn’t hesitate even once, until she falls through the thorns once again, the life drained from her body.

The Goddess turns her head in tears, sitting beneath the ashes of the trees their eyes meet once more,  _ ah, _ what a picturesque moment.

In the forest of miracles.

In the forest of destiny.

The two reunite again, as though drawn to one another they meet.

“ _ Kourin!” _

The Goddess calls with a heartfelt voice, reaching out to the girl she loves, she takes her hands and lets her tears fall carelessly over their palms. But she is surprised to feel, inside the girls hands…

“They bloom in a far away place,” She says, “The only memory I can call my own.”

Kourin’s smile is wide, despite the bruises and cuts over her skin. And without a thought in her mind, Misaki embraces her warmly, sobbing loudly into her chest and taking in the warmth of another in her arms. She has been alone so, so long.

“We will grow it so high, that it will reach the Heavens, and then, you can see your parents once again.”

Kourin pats the Goddess hand, holding her tightly in her arms until her cries are silenced, and the Goddess appears so worn out she might fall asleep an eternity.

“So smile for me, once again, Misaki.”

Kourin whispers her silent wish to the Goddess whose eyes are shut tightly. And her wish is granted by that forest, that forest that wants to share the Goddess light. A thousand flowers bloom around them, and the light of the sun warms their dried skin. And this little tree will someday reach Heaven, without any human interference again.

Deep in that floraling paradise, another story comes to an end. 

**Author's Note:**

> comment onegai


End file.
